crop VS high res

On castanet.net articles, the images have two possible resolutions: normal and large. The large option often heavily crops the images.

normal:

large:

In general they cut all the images in order to let them fit in a 16/9 ratio, or so.

This is very ugly and can/should be avoided since 50% of the image height and 50% of width is lost, in terms of contents seen in the photo.

Some example - this is another image to avoid in large res:

normal:

large:

For example - the following image should be instead set with the large resolution:

normal:

large:

The normal res is always 640x640, they are not so ugly/lowres to be considered pics. And the content are shown in that form even in the original website. Sample:

the large instead are always 779x438 res.

From the checklist:

normal and large they can be safely considered as same res, but different ratio.

CONCLUSION: the normal one should be taken when the cropping cuts off all the image (remains just the face!) and there are no improvements in resolution.